Public health and well being offers significant challenges in connection with maintaining bacteria-free surfaces in critical areas. Effective methods and standards for cleaning food preparation and consumption areas and medical treatment areas are difficult to enforce and determination of compliance with such methods via visual inspection can be near impossible in commercial environments. Wiping surfaces and items with towels and disinfectant wipes can often exacerbate those challenges as the towels and wipes can transport contaminants and microorganisms from one surface to another.
Because it is often desirable to place utensils or liquid permeable containment devices which may be reused (such as tea bags) down in a sanitary way, napkins, tissues, towels, and the like, have sometimes been used to address sanitary challenges. Such items, however, are not designed primarily to create a sanitary rest and, when used in that manner, are not available for the purposes for which they were designed. Furthermore, when items such as eating utensils, teabags, syringes and the like are laid down, spillage may occur. Napkins, towels, tissues and the like are not designed to contain this type of spillage in a sanitary manner, as is generally desirable both for general cleanliness, and to lessen the risk of spreading infections.
The present invention seeks to address such limitations by providing a multi-purpose rest that is adapted to provide an absorbent and protective resting place that serves as a barrier between potentially unsanitary surfaces and items such as utensils, liquid permeable containment devices, and medical instruments. Additional utility is gained by forming such rests so that they may be used as a restraining device (such as a napkin ring) during distribution and then as a rest thereafter. Still further utility is provided by forming such rests in a manner in which supplies of such rests may be manufactured for use in environments such as commercial kitchens where a substantial number of rests will be needed over a given period of time.